Posted on 11/22/2013 10:10:12 AM PST by Kaslin
Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas.
Anyone over the age of 55 will be asking everyone else over the age of 55: "Where were you when you heard the news?" We all know exactly where we were.
Here's my story.
I was a senior at West Orange Mountain High School in West Orange, New Jersey.
I was in drama class in the auditorium and the teacher, Miss Levin, asked me to go backstage to get some piece of business that she needed to demonstrate a point.
While back there, I spotted a radio and I turned it on. I don't remember what station I tuned it to, but it was probably WABC-AM radio because they played a lot of Beatle's tunes.
The first reports from Dallas were just coming in. Those reports indicated that both President Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson had been shot.
They were in error. The second person shot was Texas Governor John Connelly - about whom, more later.
I had just read - remember I was 16 at the time - I had just read the thriller "Seven Days in May" which has to do with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff plotting a coup against the President.
I said aloud "Oh, my God. It's coming true," even though I was alone.
I ran out to the stage and told Miss Levin what I had heard. She instructed me to go to the Central Office and tell them.
I was such a pest in high school that I had a reserved seat on the naughty bench in the central office where I would sit until the Assistant Principal could get to me, patiently explain to me how I was ruining my life, bringing shame and dishonor to my family, and then mete out an appropriate punishment for whatever horror I had committed.
I stopped off at the classroom of my Social Studies teacher, Mr. Vince Mirandi (who was also the school soccer coach) to tell him what had happened.
Someone in the back of the class, knowing about my reserved spot in the central office shouted, "Let's wait until we hear something official over the loudspeaker."
I can't remember who that was, but it would not surprise me to find out he is a high ranking official at the NSA today.
As soon as the officials could get the buses organized, school was dismissed. I got a ride home from someone and as I remember it my mom had gone out to collect my younger brother and sister from their schools. My older brother was at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York and out of her range.
She took us to our Synagogue where others had already gathered
The Rabbi was at the front of the Temple speaking to people and, at some point he began (I think this right) an impromptu Yiskor service which is the memorial service for those Jews in the community who have lost a loved one.
My mom - who was not particularly political - had told us en route to the Synagogue: "We're going to pray for our President."
Years later, when I was the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee we had a fund raiser on the ranch of former Governor (as a Democrat) and former Treasury Secretary (as a Republican under Richard Nixon) John Connelly.
It came to pass that the Chairman of the NRCC, Rep. Guy Vander Jagt (R-Mi) needed to get to the airport and I was elected to drive him. Governor Connelly said he would come along and, as the higher ranking person, sat in the passenger seat next to me.
I drove the quarter mile from the ranch house to the Farm to Market Road leading to the airport and hit the gas.
Governor Connelly was talking with Rep. Vander Jagt, stopped in mid-sentence and said to me, "Speed on up, son. If you want me to drive pull over."
I said that I was doing about 70.
He said, "You can drive as fast as this thing will go. You ain't gonna get no speeding ticket while ah'm in this car."
Years after that, I was appointed by the Mayor of Dallas, Steve Bartlett, to bid for the Special Olympics to be held in that city. Bartlett, as a conservative, Republican, Member of Congress from Dallas was a big supporter of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Special Olympics Committee was impressed with our commitment to making the Games a success and to being able to raise the funds necessary to accomplish that goal.
The Special Olympics were conceived by, and under the control of, the Kennedy family.
Things were going apace until Senator Ted Kennedy found out about it. He instructed the Special Olympics committee to cease, immediately, negotiating with Dallas and the Games went elsewhere.
I was at the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport when the Executive Director of the Special Olympics called to tell me he had to pull the plug.
I remember exactly where I was.
“The radio he turned on was not playing a lot of Beatles music. They didn’t hit until Feb of 1964. Maybe the author also watched the Zapruder film that afternoon, too. /s”
Over a million records sold in Dec 63, #1 on the charts in Jan 64.
I remember listening to the Beetles weeks before their Feb. 64 arrival. I was in Fl but listened to WLS from New Orleans. The kept playing “The Beetles are Coming!”. That’s how I remember. When I first heard that, I had no idea who the Beetles were.
"I am not talking about a quickie or a temporary tax cut which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent. "
That is a direct contradiction to the CRAP she was spewing last year about government spending its way out of recession. Gad that broad is batshite crazy.
It was JFK’s amateur foreign policy that got us into the mess in the first place. I shudder to think where Obamas blunderings will take us in the next few years. He has already lost the middle east.
I was waiting to go into Catechism class in Yokohma, Japan. It’s a reference I use whenever anyone asks how old I am.
I also remember. The teachers were all crying, all of them. One of the smart alecks cheered but the rest of the kids shamed him and he shut up.
I ran home for lunch as I always did, a bit mystified about it all. I knew we didn’t like him, he was a communist after all (and his vice president a Mafioso) but I also knew this was not right. And clearly all the teachers were shaken to their core.
My mom was in tears. I remember the radio playing endless dirges.
Like many people I spent the next several years reading everything I could get my hands on, trying to make sense of the endless contradictions between the facts and the story.
I have my version.
I was only 4 at the time and my family and I were moving from Hartford, CT.
Disconcerting for a 5 year old.
I had worked for the Republican Committee in Grand Rapids, MI, as a very young but paid “volunteer,” doing fundraising for the Nixon campaign. I was answerable to the state finance director.
After the election Nixon lost, I moved to Chicago and went to work for a publishing company. Got a phone call from MI State Repub finance director one day, he was coming to Chicago, would I like to have lunch…
We were sitting in a nice restaurant on Nov 22, discussing how we would beat Kennedy next time, when people started gathering around the TV set in the bar, everyone looked shocked. A waiter came to the tables telling people that Kennedy had been shot.
Finance guy and I looked at each other, horrified. Shared a rush of emotion, tears, shock. We wanted to beat Kennedy in the election; we most assuredly did not want him dead.
It was really a terrible moment, tinged with every emotion you can imagine, including guilt. We knew we were not guilty, but even so, we’d said such awful things about JFK in the past to so many people, perhaps….
Nah, but I was very young then…..and now you know that I’m not any more.
I was three days away from being born. I came out the day of the funeral just two miles from Arlington Cemetary.
Get in line. LOL
I was rudely awakened by the voice of a black woman who hysterically kept on screaming: “They killed him, they killed him!”, in the street outside my campus apartment.
But nothing could have ruined the bliss I was experiencing of having aced a P. Chem. exam an hour earlier. I was getting ready for Thanksgiving break.
I was sitting at the lunch counter at our local drug store eating some kind of ice cream treat. There was a radio on and the news was being broadcast. I had been chatting with the woman behind the counter and she was babbling on while I was trying to listen to the news on the radio. I had to yell at her to SHUT UP!
This is such a liberal wet dream."Where were you? Everybody remembers."
I do not remember where I was. Nor do I care. JFK was despised by everyone we knew.
My Father, for personal reasons as a military officer, was especially disappointed with Kennedy's actions regarding the Bay of Pigs.
Watched the news with him that night and remember him saying, "Well, you won't find me shedding a tear over him."
I was a student at Mississippi State University. I was waiting for my bf-later husband-to get out of class. Was parked in front of Hilburn Hall. I was listening to the radio when they broke in with the news. The rest of the day is still a blur.
Oh Beagle...you made my day!!!
I was thinking about this earlier and cringing in shame at the memory. I was in 5th grade, in class, when the teacher made the announcement and was the only one who cheered! We were a rabid Pub family, my mother having immigrated to the US after surviving Nazi-occupied France.
I feel so less guilty now and so much better thanks to your post!!!
We were more than a little pissed that we now had to do KP until we left Germany plus he extended us in Germany until the end of our enlistments instead of transferring us back to the states after 24 months(due to the Berlin Wall "crisis") and we had no tailor to make us cheap civilian suits and sew on our stripes.
When I first heard the news I told my wife that it was probably an ex GI who had been stationed in Germany that shot him due to all the above, just joking of course.
We didn't like the guy much, for making us pay for his political gain. I was not all that sad(pissed that someone would actually kill an American President)but was sorry for his family, I didn't see that he was such a hot President, he lied a lot, not as much as Bozo but a lot, I would not have voted for him.
I listened to WLS, too. But the one I listened to was out of Chicago. A million records sold in Dec ‘63. That’s a month after Kennedy was shot. I simply don’t remember hearing the Beatles prior to that event. The songs I remember were songs like “Hey, Hey Paula”, Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet” and Elvis.
Here’s a trivial question. What was the Beatle’s first release? Answer “Love Me Do”. It was released in England. It was the third or fourth release in the US.
You really should read it - he trashes the swimmer.
I was in HS decorating Senior Hall for Thanksgiving when the school’s secretary came rushing out of her office to grab me by my hand to pull me into her office to listen to the radio broadcast about the president being shot in Dallas.
We were soon joined by all three principals (boy’s, girl’s, and head) and unbelievably, I was still standing in that room when the decision was made to dismiss the school for the entire upcoming week. (Early Thanksgiving vacation). November 22, 1964 was a Friday and we were sent home immediately at Noon. We heard he was pronounced dead around 11:00 AM PST.
“I listened to WLS, too. But the one I listened to was out of Chicago.”
On a good night I could also ... in Florida.
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